Bradley M. Kuhn wrote:
>
>
>bkuhn wrote:
> > >law,
> > >and it isn't worth putting statements like this in licenses. They are
> > >unenforceable through copyright law, and thus
>
>Ben Tilly wrote:
>
> > I borrowed it from both the BSD and the GPL. Even if it is
> > unenforcable, it is likely to discourage people from abusing
> > that.
>
>I don't seem to be able to find something like that in the GPL. Can you
>point me to it?
Erk, I must have misremembered. I cannot find it either.
>Some BSD-style copyright notices do have that, but I don't think they are
>actually enforceable.
>
I will remove it.
>
> > The language in the preamble may need some cleaning up, but unless there
> > is a specific legal intention I truly mean to have a copyright statement
> > that contains the offer of a contract which you may want to accept and
> > follow.
>
>That makes sense; I don't know what a lawyer will say. I will run it by
>Eben when you get a finalized version into an RFC.
>
It will be going through more rewrites. :-)
>
> > >This statement is ok; and it states what is true. I think it's enough,
>and
> > >we don't need to say "contract".
>
> > I was trying to reword verbiage from the GPL and clear up the structure.
> > I want it to be obvious that there is an offered contract even to a
>layman
> > (professional lawyers have had trouble noticing that detail in the GPL)
> > since that is key to how it works.
>
>We could always just use the verbiage the GPL uses; I think it's pretty
>clear:
>
> You are not required to accept this License, since you have not
> signed it. However, nothing else grants you permission to
>modify
> or distribute the Program or its derivative works. These
>actions
> are prohibited by law if you do not accept this License.
> Therefore, by modifying or distributing the Program (or any work
> based on the Program), you indicate your acceptance of this
> License to do so, and all its terms and conditions for copying,
> distributing or modifying the Program or works based on it.
>
>
>Ben, did you find something particularly unclear about this text? I think
>this text from the GPL is actually *clearer* than a phrase like "Proffered
>Contract". But, TMTOWTDI, after all.
>
Yes, I do find something unclear about this.
In the case of the GPL the copyright license is also an offered
contract. They are one and the same. Therefore the disclaimer
of warranty in the copyright must be included when you apply the
license or else you could theoretically be sued by someone who
uses the above verbiage to not accept your disclaimer.
I have no idea how that would fly in court, but that is why I
want the proposed terms you can agree to to not be confusable
with the license as a whole.
Now "Proffered Contract" is precise and accurate, but uses words
that most people do not know. (I don't need to look words like
that up, certainly at least one pass will need to be, "use small
words".) I will change that to "Offered Agreement" unless
anyone objects though, since I think most people won't need to
look those words up. :-)
>
[...]
> > In that case clause b) should be cleaned up since that is what b) is
>meant
> > to do. I additionally do want to insist that the changes be publically
> > maintained so that the developers can readily obtain the changes in one
> > place without having to purchase a proprietary package.
>
>Ok, Then I propose my text for (e) to replace the text from (b).
I reorganized so that neither clause fits. Sorry.
>However, my other concern is we may be turning it into a copyleft license.
>What is the "out" if people don't want to distribute their source? They
>must install to a different location?
The direction I moved in, and plan to move farther in, does
indeed borrow from copyleft ideas but should have very
different effects.
Basically it will look like is, "Should you wish to borrow
code from here and do anything that might cause a conflict
with what you borrowed from, you need to follow
copyleft-like rules. Should it not conflict then we may
want some minor acknowledgement to prevent potential
confusion but otherwise take and enjoy."
Does that make sense?
> > >With the addition of part e in section 5, I believe this is a free
>software
> > >license, incompatible with the GPL. It's probably an open source
>license
> > >too.
>
> > I suspect that it is incompatible with the GPL when not used in
> > a dual-licensing situation with the GPL or a GPL-compatible
> > license.
>
>Oh, of course! I was just making it clear that the license alone was
>incompatible.
Well the direction that I am heading is definitely incompatible.
Namely the only way (without alternate arrangements with the
copyright holders of course) to distribute under the AL modified
versions of stuff in the package that could conflict with it is
if you release it under terms where it can be incorporated back
into the package. In other words permission is not given to put
it under the GPL if it was not already since it could not then
be incorporated back into Perl then into proprietary works.
The key principle is, "You use our stuff to possibly conflict
with us, we must be free to borrow back whatever we like."
> > As I stated before, compatibility with the GPL is not something I
> > consider important.
>
>I realize that, and we may disagree. But, it's up to Larry to decide if he
>wants the new Artistic License to be GPL-compatible or not.
Of course. :-)
> > For instance would something like my proposed statement that Larry
>Wall
> > could (after a specified period of public discussion with no remaining
> > objections from copyright holders) relicense Perl really fly?
>
>I am not sure I understand the question; perhaps I failed to read some of
>the relevant discussion. Could you take a minute and point me to your
>proposal in the archives?
The archives are behind. I think I pointed to it in my attempt
to annotate the first draft. I definitely explained in another
email I just sent.
Full details depend upon the exact way I am writing my proposed
AL.
Cheers,
Ben
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